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Psalm 146

Praise for God’s Help

¹ Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
² I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
   I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

³ Do not put your trust in princes,
   in mortals, in whom there is no help.
⁴ When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
   on that very day their plans perish.

⁵ Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the Lord their God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
   the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
⁷   who executes justice for the oppressed;
   who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸   the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
   the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the strangers;
   he upholds the orphan and the widow,
   but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign for ever,
   your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

¹⁴ For a long time I have held my peace,
   I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labour,
   I will gasp and pant.
¹⁵ I will lay waste mountains and hills,
   and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands,
   and dry up the pools.
¹⁶ I will lead the blind
   by a road they do not know,
by paths they have not known
   I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
   the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
   and I will not forsake them.
¹⁷ They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame—
   those who trust in carved images,
who say to cast images,
   ‘You are our gods.’

¹⁸ Listen, you that are deaf;
   and you that are blind, look up and see!
¹⁹ Who is blind but my servant,
   or deaf like my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like my dedicated one,
   or blind like the servant of the Lord?
²⁰ He sees many things, but does^* not observe them;
   his ears are open, but he does not hear.

Israel’s Disobedience

²¹ The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness,
   to magnify his teaching and make it glorious.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard it, we have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of God’s^* will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, ¹⁰so that you may lead lives worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, as you bear fruit in every good work and as you grow in the knowledge of God. ¹¹May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully ¹²giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled^* you^* to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light. ¹³He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, ¹⁴in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.^*